As your grandmother told you, "It's always darkest before the dawn." History provides so many instances of this old saw retaining sharp teeth that one should never have lost hope over the past five years of the Bush Nightmare. From the first moment Bush was forced on us by the Supreme Court in January 2001 — after losing the popular vote by 500,000, give or take tens of thousands of votes in Florida thrown out by his henchmen — a horrible precedent was set, undermining the entire superstructure of American history. If one were naive enough to care about democracy, believe the words of the Declaration of Independence and consider the Constitution inviolable, then one felt as Ralph Waldo Emerson did the day after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850: "I wake up in the morning with a painful sensation, at the smell of infamy in the air."

Was there, then, a darker moment than Nov. 3, 2004, when the tricksters pulled another fast one on the American people, and Bush — the greatest failure in American history — was awarded a second term? It was, as one of my readers put it in a poster that still hangs over my desk, "A Day of Mourning For Our Country."

But, history has a way of inexorably and implacably moving toward moments that prove your grandmother knows best. In the East they call it karma. Here we call it justice.

And justice is on the move in America. Tom DeLay faces criminal proceedings for running a money-laundering Mob-style election-fixing racket. DeLay's shadow, Bill Frist, may face criminal proceedings for insider-trading and perjury (lying to Congress about his "blind trust") — the same offenses that landed Martha Stewart in prison. More importantly, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has inexorably and implacably built his case against the Bush White House in the matter of Valerie Plame's "outing" — a felony, perhaps treason — and dawn will break soon when he issues indictments against, in all likelihood, Karl Rove, Lewis Libby and Ari Fleischer. Most importantly, Dick Cheney — the Wizard of Oz of American politics — stands squarely in Fitzgerald's crosshairs and, ultimately, so does George W. Bush.

This is our Wizard of Oz moment, when Dorothy pulls back the curtain to reveal the Wizard as a frightened fat old man with a bum ticker. Though some people are surprised that it happened "so fast," those of us in the reality-based community saw it coming three years ago when Bush began preparing for a war that, in a free country, should never have been allowed to start. It feels somewhat the same as when the invincible "evil empire" of the Soviet Union developed a crack in its iron curtain. Gorbachev let some light and oxygen enter, in hopes of healing the rift, but the crack grew and the Berlin Wall fell and the dawn broke, snap, just like that. It collapsed like the house of cards it always was. That's exactly what's happening at the White House now. It may be shocking to some how quickly this invincible team of Mayberry Machiavellis are going down, but it's no surprise to your grandmother.

Were the GOP run by decent people who have the best interests of the nation at heart, then they'd call for resignations and initiate a process of Truth and Reconciliation, as per Nelson Mandela. But, in 2005, the GOP is run by creaky apparatchiks like Dennis Hastert and knuckle-draggers like Trent Lott and they take orders from cranky end-timers like James Dobson and lend an ear to dottering psychopaths like Pat Robertson. The GOP will, similarly, sink under the weight of its own cronyism, corruption and incompetence.

The Democrats stand to be the undeserving recipients of this karmic swingback of history. That is, they stand to gain a few seats in the Congress in 2006. But they are fools if they don't see they had nothing to do with this new dawn. In fact, were this Europe in 1945, we'd be holding citizens' tribunals to determine the level of each Democrat's collaboration with the GOP in dragging us into this war, prolonging it, sanctioning torture, looting our Treasury and not once raising a convincing opposition.

As we wait for justice to take its full course, we're at an impasse. One thing's for certain: we can't waste any more time.

Hurry up dawn.